Nor was he acting out of spite, or trying to tarnish Leestma's reputation by making him look like a braggart, he said.

Rather, Joe Bliss said, he took part in protected speech.

"To the extent that the news articles and Facebook posts made by the Plaintiff reflect a negative personal character the republication of said items as a group by Defendant is critical commentary and not actionable, as alleged by Plaintiff," Bliss's attorney, Christopher Gibbons, wrote in response to a federal lawsuit filed by Leestma.

Leestma originally filed the lawsuit against John Doe, suspecting a former worker had registered the website under his name. He later named Bliss as the defendant.

Leestma alleged Bliss made it look like Leestma started the site, and shared his social media posts and reposted a news story to make him look like a "deceptive businessman and braggart," his attorney, John Di Giacomo said.

"Evidencing Defendant's nefarious intent, Defendant published a header on the website, which proclaimed: 'Public Information. The internet is forever,'" Di Giacomo wrote in the lawsuit.

He contends Bliss violated protection laws by trying to sell Leestma the domain name, ryanleestma.com, at a profit. Bliss denied the allegation.

Leestma is chief executive officer of Leestma Management and founder of Information Systems Intelligence LLC, or ISI, which has been honored as one of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S.

He also is known as a triathlete who has raised funds for epilepsy-related causes after suffering epileptic seizures. He has competed in the World Long Course in Sweden, the Olympic Nationals and the Ironman World Championships.

Mark Clark, an attorney for Traverse Legal which specializes in such cases, has said registering a domain in an attempt to profit could be liable for cyber-squatting. But if it is only to provide commentary, it's usually not a problem.

Bliss, who once worked for Leestma at ISI, says he registered the domain May 5.
A month later, Leestma's attorney said, the defendant "began copying and displaying Plaintiff's personal and private Facebook messages on a web page located at the ryanleestma.com domain name."

He said articles were "selectively" posted on the site.

"In an attempt to justify his actions, Defendant published a purported disclaimer in the footer of his website, which stated, 'Disclaimer: This site is not hosted by Ryan Leestma and is simply a collection of true information gathered from the Internet.'"

He said the site could harm Leestma's businesses, too.

Bliss says he did nothing wrong and only provided protected commentary. His attorney acknowledged his client was "selectively" posting news stories about Leestma.

But, Gibbons said, "The Defendant denies having copied and displayed any private Facebook messages authored by the Plaintiff for reason that the same is untrue. The Defendant admits he did copy and display public postings authored by the Plaintiff which were originally published by the Plaintiff in Facebook homepages of third parties. Consistent with the state of the law in the 6th Circuit such postings are not privileged and not subject to the protections of common or civil law notions of privacy."

Gibbons said his client acquired the domain to exercise "free speech which is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The exercise of free speech includes the right to make and publish critical commentary."